When Kellie Welch started volunteering with her son Evan's youth theater productions, she didn't expect it to change the direction of her life. But something about watching kids transform, nervous at first, then alive on stage, hooked her completely. What began as a supporting role became a calling, and now the two are bringing that shared passion to Bedford.

First Act Productions, the youth theater company they founded after three years running a homeschool theater group called Agape Players, recently opened a rehearsal space in town. Their fall production of Frozen Jr. will be the first open to all Bedford students, not just homeschoolers, a meaningful expansion for a program that has quietly been building something special.

Evan has been involved in theater since he was 14, working in choreography and music direction. Kellie came to it later, through him. Together they've put on ten shows, and this past March they staged their debut First Act production, The Wizard of Oz (Youth Edition), at the Derry Opera House, featuring a cast of homeschool students from the local community.

At its heart, First Act is built around a straightforward idea: that kids thrive when they have a creative outlet and a community to belong to. The program welcomes students of all experience levels and offers hands-on training in acting, singing, dancing, and stage performance. Rehearsals are collaborative and high-energy. Students aren't just learning lines and choreography; they're learning how to communicate, support each other, and take risks in a safe environment. For many kids, theater becomes less about performing and more about finding their voice and figuring out who they are.

What drives Evan and Kellie, they say, isn't the performances themselves but what happens to kids in the process. The confidence that gets built in a rehearsal room, learning to project, to recover from a mistake, to trust a scene partner, tends to follow students well past opening night. It shows up in classrooms, in friendships, in how a kid carries themselves. That's the part that keeps the Welches coming back.

One aspect of their model that sets First Act apart is a deliberate commitment to keeping the financial barrier low. Performance fees are modest, and all shows are free for audiences. It's a structural choice rooted in the belief that a child's access to the arts shouldn't hinge on what their family can afford. In a landscape where youth arts programs can be expensive to participate in and expensive to attend, First Act is trying to build something different, a program sustained by community support and shared investment rather than ticket sales.

The fall production of The Little Mermaid Jr. represents a new chapter. Auditions will be open to all interested students, and it will be the first First Act show to draw broadly from Bedford and the surrounding area, not just the homeschool families who helped get the program off the ground. It's a natural next step for a company that has spent three years refining what it does and is now ready to grow its community.

For Bedford families who want to get involved, there are several entry points. Kids can audition for The Little Mermaid Jr. when auditions are announced this summer. Community members interested in volunteering with productions or supporting the program through local sponsorships are welcome to reach out as well. For a program built on the idea that the arts belong to everyone, having neighbors invested in its success, in whatever form that takes, is very much part of the vision. Updates, audition announcements, and performance information can be found at facebook.com/FirstActNH.